8/30/08

Where has all the loyalty and honor gone?

Q: Where has all the loyalty and honor gone?

Every week I get Emails from employees and employers alike speaking to the lack of loyalty and honor between the two. The last couple of weeks seemed to bring an onslaught of more of the same. So this week’s newsletter will be from 3 prospective positions: Employees, Employers and a Recruiter. This will be a cumulative of many Emails, and in most cases, paraphrased by me;

From the Employees:

1. “….There is no loyalty in the corporate structure today. At any given moment if it suits the firm due to finance or otherwise, not a thought is given to eliminating staff at any level or years of service.”2. “….To add salt to the wound, the #1 cutting method embraced and codified by firms to survive or thrive is to undermine any expense they can save by not extending what is due the employee. This is what CEO’s are taught in many executive level courses.”3. “….Setting up loyalty and accountability within firms disenfranchises the people and sets up a perfect atmosphere to use this effort to the companies’ advantage then discard the employees when it suits them. This of course is a total contradiction to what the reality of the intrinsic corporate world of today.

From the Employers:

1. “….Why are employees continually searching for new jobs? Don’t they realize that if they’d give us loyalty and tenure it would be as much to their benefit as it would to ours?”2. “….There is no loyalty in the workforce today. They want to get in, get what they can for themselves and get out.3. “….The workforce today has learned the lessons of loyalty and what’s in it for them. But if we don’t keep giving and giving to the “me - me” mentality, the company ends up on the short end and another costly rehire. It’s hard to embrace employees with this mentality.”

From the Recruiters About Employers:

1. “…Hiring managers have lost their honor! They give me a search then “back door” me by doing their own search. They will use my candidates to benchmark the ones they find. Costs me time, money and credibility in the recruiting theater from our candidates’ standpoint. This lack of professional courtesy demonstrates a void in a hiring managers personal makeup.”2. “….Time kills all deals and hiring managers today string people along always looking for the next candidate that “might” be one slight notch better than the candidate they claim they really like.”3. “….Hiring authorities have become blatant prevaricators (liars) in their feedback to me the recruiter and to our candidates. What they don’t realize that their actions and statements give their own company a bad name.”

From the Recruiters about Employees:

1. “….No show to interview by prospective employees has become an alarming frequent occurrence. Every time this occurs, that employees name gets an additional strike against it.”2. “….Fall outs or quitters by new employees have become a frequent occurrence as well. Start a job, work a few days then just don’t show up. Don’t they do a due diligence on the company, the drive, the environment etc., before they accept the position?”3. “….Candidates that tell us they will relocate and we find them a great opportunity and at the last minute decided that relocation really wasn’t an option. Another slam to their credibility.4. “….Relocation issues are becoming huge. Candidates tell me they will relocate and at the last minute pull back usually blaming their spouses. It get’s the new companies hopes up that they found a quality employee, they get my hopes up that I will get a placement and instead it becomes a 3 way losing cause. Very costly to all concerned.”5. “….Many candidates today will tell me whatever it takes to get the interview. Once they start to make progress they start to get an attitude and greed pops up its ugly head.”